


Alleviate, Ease, Relieve

by galaxyjun



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Lim Changkyun | I.M-centric, members mentioned but don’t do much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 12:01:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13457838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galaxyjun/pseuds/galaxyjun
Summary: Lies come easier than sleep and it’s beginning to show beneath his eyes in purple-black-blue bruises that screamguilty, guiltyat whoever’s willing to listen. He’ll be able to fool himself one day.————————————————Healing is a process. Changkyun’s working on it.





	Alleviate, Ease, Relieve

**Author's Note:**

> Written and posted at 1am bc I hate myself

Changkyun passes out after six days without sleeping around three weeks before their debut.

It’s turned into a Whole Fucking Thing, with possible delays discussed and doctors visited and a neat little IV drip jabbed into Changkyun’s veins. His members are pissed, his manager’s pissed, the higher ups are pissed, hell, the only person who doesn’t seem to be pissed is his nurse.

“Noona, are you pissed off?” He asks her when she’s unhooking him from that fucking IV drip with robotic precision. Just to make sure.

She gives him a blank look, eyes dead and brimming with muted anguish. “I’ve been working for over a day now. I don’t have the emotional capacity to be.”

Changkyun shrugs. “Fair.”

He gets two lectures on the car ride home, one from their manager and another from the higher ups. “The only reason you’re not still in that hospital is cause of your debut.” Some stuffy old man in a suit spits at him through a receiver. “Get your act together Changkyun, you can’t pull this shit and jeopardize the team.”

People think he’s overcompensating. Or that he’s pulling some standard nervous rookie shit. Or that he’s just an insomniac. The doctor asks him if he had any idea.

He says - 

That he hasn’t got a clue. That he’s never really been a heavy sleeper. That he functions normally without sleep. That he hadn’t even felt tired, he promises.

But -

Sleep pulls at Changkyun’s eyelids with desperation, forced away by the all too familiar smell of his sheets. Changkyun can’t bring himself to fall asleep just after laundry day. Laundry day means nights awake, tense, scared so fucking terrified with his heart in his throat and his body an empty shell whilst his mind wanders far far away to a land Changkyun runs from but still remains close behind.

The members don’t say anything to Changkyun when he gets home. They’re not around to, they haven’t left the practice room since he collapsed. No time to worry or wonder or care, not with the date circled and squared away in the calendar, in their minds, looming in the distance much closer than any of them thought it would ever be.

Changkyun comes home to an empty home and walks into his empty room and climbs into his bed and tries to hold his breath and take comfort in the fact that it’s empty. He only falls asleep because his body begs him to.

The smell seeps into his dreams and drowns his sheets in his sweat. They smell somewhat better now, at least.

————————————————

Somewhere in between a performance and a schedule Changkyun throws up on the side of the road.

He says - 

It’s not the food (to his manager.) 

It’s not your perfume (to his members.)

It’s not the motion and it’s certainly not the nerves (no one’s asked, but he says anyways.)

They think he’s lying. Changkyun isn’t. They ask if he knows what it is. That’s when Changkyun lies.

Throughout the interrogation, the heaving, The panic, the radio plays on in the background. It’s oh so faint, tinny through the window cracks and fighting it’s way out of the shitty speakers of the van. It’s all too loud, and the music makes Changkyun’s stomach churn again and again until he has to turn away from the group and retch into the bushes.

He says it’s an off day. By the time they accept his answer the song switches to ads, and Changkyun stares out the window and wills her voice to fade into static and disappear into the wind.

He can’t quite wash the taste of bile away.

————————————————

Changkyun slaps Jooheon.

He’s not quite sure when, because time bleeds together when you carry your life in a suitcase. He’s not quite sure where, because all stages look the same amidst the lights and the screaming and the same set list that’s burned into the back of his eyes.

Jooheon shouts and Changkyun apologizes and through laughter everyone asks in a chorus of bemused concern what the hell happened.

He says -

Jooheon came up from behind him and placed two firm hands on Changkyun’s shoulders with a teasing drawl of “Changgie” and got slapped across the face.

But he thinks -

Jooheon came up from behind him and placed two firm hands on Changkyun’s shoulders with a teasing drawl of “Changgie” and sent Changkyun into a spiral where there’s only strong perfume and a high teasing voice and nails so sharp Changkyun still feels their dig, tight yet just barely there like a ghost’s vice. A vice that closes around Changkyun’s throat and makes blood rush in his ears broken only by the clean sharp crack of flesh meeting flesh and the loud confused cry of someone wronged.

They ask him why, and he laughs and says he was startled. That he wasn’t expecting it. That hyung shouldn’t be so mean.

Lies come easier than sleep and it’s beginning to show beneath his eyes in purple-black-blue bruises that scream _guilty, guilty_ at whoever’s willing to listen. The red of his palm joins them in their accusations. He hides the evidence with his hands clasped in his laps and he disguises it as a prayer for forgiveness.

He’ll be able to fool himself one day.

————————————————

They’re eating breakfast. Silent, eyes sharing words unspoken over Changkyun’s head. He keeps it lowered, red eyes burning holes into the wood. They have questions they don’t ask, probably, they have concerns they don’t share, most likely. Changkyun would too, if he lived would someone who screamed themselves awake more nights than not. He can feel them stealing glances and their looks of concern burn right through him.

Kihyun places a bowl in front of him. “Milk or juice Changkyun-ah?” He asks, picking up Changkyun’s empty glass.

“I had sex with my tutor when I was thirteen.” Changkyun replies.

Kihyun places the glass back down.

Changkyun takes a shaky breath and tries again. “No, fuck. I... It was sex. But I was thirteen. She, she wasn’t. She was older.” Another breath. It comes with surprising ease. “Twenty-one. She was twenty-one, fuck she was as old as I am now.”

The clock ticks slowly in the background. “I. My twenty-one year old tutor had sex with me when I was thirteen.” It doesn’t feel right. Changkyun says it again and tries his best to ignore how his voice trembles around every single word.

“Coerced.” Hyunwoo supplies, his voice all too gentle and much too kind, but the white of his knuckles is clear, his hand hands wrapped so tightly around their chopsticks they’ve snapped in his grip.

“Coerced.” Changkyun tries. It fits better. “She... my tutor coerced me into sex. When I was thirteen. I was thirteen when my tutor coerced me into sex. Then I was fourteen. But I was thirteen when it started, when she first coerced me into a sexual relationship with her.”

And hand is placed between his shoulder blades, and it’s as if it’s large comforting warmth presses the words out of him with the utmost kindness -

And it’s like he’s known the right words forever -

And they all fall into place one by one -

And he says - 

“My tutor sexually abused me for a full year. I was thirteen.” Changkyun says, and then the tears choke the rest of his words and he cries and cries and cries.

Someone holds him, warm and solid and comforting.

————————————————

Hyungwon argues with him for twenty minutes over superior smells but they decide on a new detergent eventually.

They’re able to change stations in barely a breath without missing a single beat when familiar chords begin and Changkyun’s breath shortens.

Hoseok types up a list of forty different nicknames that aren’t Changgie. Hyunwoo frequently references the screenshot when he’s drawing one of his many blanks.

There’s a strange feeling. Light but warm, familiar but new, something he wants to fill his lungs and drown him and hold him tightly never to let go. Changkyun breathes it in. Breathes it out. It shakes ever so slightly.

Someone asks if he’s okay.

And he says -

**Author's Note:**

> Coping fucking sucks so I projected.
> 
> [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/kyunset)


End file.
